


Sister

by WinterXAssassin



Category: Halo (Video Games) & Related Fandoms
Genre: Action, Angst, Canon Compliant, Canonical Character Death, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Friendship, Gen, Halo: Reach, Injury, Military, Platonic Female/Male Relationships, Platonic Male/Male Relationships, Pre-Canon, Science Fiction, Team as Family, Tears, also the death was like mentioned in passing, except like vaguely lmao, it wasn't shown
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-06
Updated: 2019-04-06
Packaged: 2020-01-05 16:34:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,057
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18369863
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WinterXAssassin/pseuds/WinterXAssassin
Summary: He'd just lost Thom.He wasn't going to lose her, too.





	Sister

**Author's Note:**

  * For [epsiloneridani](https://archiveofourown.org/users/epsiloneridani/gifts).



> A/N: So, my partial take on what happened in the _Deliver Hope_ live-action trailer for _Halo: Reach_. And also my take on the aftermath.
> 
> Hope you enjoy, despite the angst ;)
> 
> Also, as this was a gift for the lovely epps over on tumblr, so it is also a gift for her here, too. <3 boo

Searing, agonizing pain, followed by a blank, blissful numbness.

Primal fear, ice cold, clawing at her chest.

The daylight tilted and spun as Kat shifted her head, trying to see. Too many cracks in her visor. Her HUD was ruined; she did not know why she couldn’t feel her right arm, because her TEAMBIO readouts couldn’t be seen.

Despite being effectively blinded, she could still  _hear_. That damned Banshee was circling overhead, engines whining, still on the hunt. Seemed like it wasn’t finished with her yet. It was like a vulture, ready to pick her off if she didn’t  _get up_ , and  _move_. Ready to do more than just cause her injury, if she didn’t  _keep fighting_. She was still its prey.

_Crack. Crack. Crack. Crack. Whump._

Or, maybe not.

Jun. No denying the sound of an SRS99 being fired with perfect precision. But she didn’t know how close he was. Her motion tracker was not working. In fact, one of the only things  _still_ working on her HUD was the countdown for the…

The nuke.

Shit.

She was going to die, wasn’t she? Out here, in the middle of the battlefield, after making such a stupid mistake? Frustrated tears welled up in her eyes. She wanted to move, but her armour must have been locked down. Where were the others? If they were too far away, they would not have been able to reach her in time…

Kat blinked, and for a heartbeat, thought that she was hallucinating the grey-armoured figure of Thom standing above her, gold visor staring down at the nuke beside her. But she blinked again, and he was still there, and she knew that he was real, that he was right there, as he reached down for the MFDD that lay beside her and turned away. 

She wanted to scream as she watched the jetpack strapped to his armour ignite, as the Spartan took off towards the Battlecruiser that hung in orbit above them, that was the source of all their misery. But no sound came out. She wanted to tell him  _what the hell are you doing, you can’t go up there alone, there’s not enough time left, you’ll never make it out of there,_ but it was as though there was a hand clamped over her mouth; she knew that she was opening and shutting it, but no noise escaped her; the words never formed, and instead died in her throat.

She blinked again and there was Carter above her, shaking her, and his visor was depolarized so she could see his face, see that he was shouting  _something_  at her, but she couldn’t hear him, and her vision was growing dark at the edges, and he was looking more panicked than she’d ever seen him, and—

_I’m sorry, Commander._

* * *

The next time Kat opened her eyes, she was in a medbay, her right arm was gone and replaced with a prosthetic, and Carter was sitting nearby, looking like he’d been awake half the night watching over her. His eyes were half-closed, and whether he was asleep or awake, she could not tell. His eyebrows were furrowed, and his expression was caught somewhere between a frown and a grimace.

What had happened? She could scarce remember much after falling, that Banshee screaming overhead, and the searing pain in her right arm before absolute numbness in the limb. Everything that followed was a blur. Or was it a dream? It would come back to her in time, of that she had no doubt.

“Carter?” Her voice was rasping, and low, but she knew that he would hear her regardless. Maybe she  _had_ managed to scream, at some point. It would explain why her throat felt scratchy.

She watched as he looked towards her, expression flipping from guilt, to grief, to anguish and perhaps torment. What had  _happened_? Why did the tears blur his eyes, and fall down his unshaven cheeks? Why did he look like he did not know whether to hug her, or to apologize to her profusely? Had they lost one of their team? She’d seen him low, but she’d not seen raw fear in his eyes such as this.

“Don’t leave me.” He sounded broken, so broken, and shockingly  _young_.

The sound shot pain straight through her chest, followed by a fierce rush of love for this man, her teammate, her Commander and friend. Whatever had happened, she would be there for him, as she had been every time he needed someone to lean on, through all the years they’d known one another.

_He is my brother, and I will not stand idly by while he is dealing with sorrow. I will not let him deal with this on his own; he needs me._

“Carter, what happened?”

The look he gave her told her all that she needed to know. “Thom didn’t…. he didn’t make it out alive. He was still up there when the nuke went off. He was my  _brother_ , and now he’s…. I almost lost you, too.” A ragged sob escaped him, and the older Spartan lowered his head. He was bowed and broken by his grief.

Kat sucked in a breath, releasing it slowly to steady herself. “Don’t you think that he, as your brother-in-arms, loved you so much and knew how you would not be able to live without me, that he sacrificed himself to make sure that I wouldn’t die? That it was his choice to take the nuke up to the cruiser, to continue the mission and make sure that we won, no matter if it cost him his life?”

The Commander looked downright  _miserable_ at those words, and yet, she could see the acceptance in his eyes. She knew that he knew she was right, but that it still hurt him all the same. He shifted himself closer and buried his face into her shoulder, and not even a minute later, she felt his tears soaking through the material of her fatigues.

“I promise I won’t leave you, Carter,” she told him quietly smoothing her hand up and down his back, feeling the tension leave his muscles. “I’m your  _sister_ , and there’s no way in hell I’d go anywhere without you. Ever.”

“Okay,” he said quietly, “Okay.”

And Kat did not let go of him for a very long time.


End file.
